March the 7th, 2023 - Five Croatian companies have made it onto the Financial Times' prestigious list of the fastest growing companies based in Europe.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Josipa Ban writes, as many as five Croatian companies have been included in the prestigious Financial Times list of the fastest growing European companies. This ranking follows the growth of company revenues in the last three years, ending in 2021, and according to the growth criteria, five Croatian companies have entered the prestigious rankings of the 1000 best.

At the very top of the list, in a very impressive fourteenth position, is Aircash, which makes it the best positioned domestic company, but also one of the fastest growing in Europe. Devōt (87th place), Syntio (551st place), Heloo (712th place) and SysKit (771st place) also follow.

At number one on the FT list was Tripledot Studio, a mobile video game development studio from Great Britain whose three-year average revenue growth rate was 794%. The most fast-growing European companies on the list come from Italy (260), Germany (217) and Great Britain (155).

The impressive growth in income achieved by these companies, writes FT, can be best explained by the situation they found themselves in back in 2021. It was a time of restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic and interruptions in supply chains. Because of the above, many sectors, especially tourism, catering/hospitality and trade, faced a significant drop in sales and an increase in costs. And while they were fighting for survival, the IT and technology sector was blooming. Namely, people were forced to work, and then do their shopping from home, which accelerated the digitisation process and the growth of online sales.

"The FT's great recognition for our company is also a confirmation of the success of our continuous work and efforts in the development of innovative financial products and services. We managed to radically and permanently change the way the traditional industry functions, and this is a confirmation that we 'e going in the right direction", said Hrvoje Cosic, the founder and director of Aircash, the company that developed the very first Croatian digital wallet, which is used by more than half a million people today.

Their growth, he says, was significantly influenced by the expansion of operations to several new EU markets last year. Investments in the development of new technologies and products will be crucial for their continued growth and maintaining their leading position in this industry, he pointed out.

"Further expansion plans will further strengthen our global position, and considering the fact that we work to improve the user experience every day and offer simpler and more efficient solutions for our users, this recognition further motivates us to continue working on the development of new services and products and the establishment of new partner relationships in with the goal of further business expansion,'' the founder and director of Aircash stated as his plans for this year.

With impressive growth of 155% and revenues of 2.6 million euros, Devōt, which is focused on product development within the so-called health tech system is the second best positioned domestic company on the list.

Third, in 551st position, comes Syntio, whose average three-year growth was 57.4%, while its revenues in 2021 amounted to 3.4 million euros. It is a company that was founded in 2017 and deals with cloud-based data engineering. Today, they have 110 employees, and their clients come from all over the world, from Scandinavia to the USA to South Africa.

"Year after year, we've been recording positive business results, and this prestigious award confirms that we're carrying out quality work for the second year already," pointed out Davorin Cetto, the co-founder and director of Syntio.

With growth of 47.3 percent, the company Heloo, which achieved 12 million euros in revenue in 2021, also took 712th place on FT's list.

The last of the Croatian companies that managed to enter the list thanks to its business results is SysKit. This particular startup, which develops a platform for managing Microsoft's environments, is positioned in 771st place with a growth of 44.8 percent and three million euros in revenue in 2021.

"Although for the last few years we've been extremely focused on scaling the company, due to the great competition, we didn't expect to be included on the list. This is an additional confirmation that our continuous investment in people, knowledge and product enables us to stand among the most successful European organisations,'' said Toni Frankola, the CEO of SysKit.

For more on Croatian companies, check out our business section.

ZAGREB, 16 March 2022 - Međimurje County has been given the European Cities and Regions of the Future 2022/23 award by one of the most reputable world economic magazines the Financial Times, its fourth such award, among 160 larger or smaller regions and more than 350 cities in the European Union.

County Prefect Matija Posavec, who received the award in Cannes on Tuesday, told a press conference on Wednesday that the award was not a coincidence and that Međimurje has been recognised as one of the most favourable areas for successfully doing business in Europe thanks to a system that connects the economy and education, among other things.

It is an award to a proud Međimurje that combines all those values of our people, who are productive and diligent, Posavec said, underscoring that over the past two years of the coronavirus pandemic, Međimurje's economy continued to grow as it has been over the past 15 years.

Posavec highlighted several examples of a good entrepreneurial environment such as the Technological-Innovation Centre, the Međiurje Energy Agency and the Čakovec Metal Hub as well as the first scientific-research centre that is owned by a county government. He announced the opening of a regional competence centre in the next month.

"Results do not come overnight, but we are always thinking two steps ahead, and today we are thinking about what will happen tomorrow, which is our wish to become a pilot project in our health system and to apply artificial intelligence here too," said Posavec.

The director of the REDEA Public Institute for the Development of Međimurje County, Sandra Polanec Marinović, said that due to COVID-19 it was necessary to adapt to new criteria.

"We also presented those sectors that have the greatest potential for post-pandemic recovery, concentrating on new rapidly-growing sectors such as eMobility, as well as presenting the IT sector and creative industries," she said, recalling the huge municipal investments in business zones.

Business: For more, check out our business section.

March the 2nd, 2022 - The well respected and heavily read Financial Times (FT) has listed the IT company Syntio as the fastest growing company of its kind in the Republic of Croatia.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the IT company Syntio, a Croatian cloud-based IT engineering company, ranked 225th on the prestigious list of The Financial Times (FT 1000) of Europe’s fastest growing companies.

If we look exclusively at the position in the IT sector, then the IT company Syntio took 55th place in all of Europe, meaning it took first place at the national level of Croatia, with a growth of 673.74 percent in the period from 2017 to 2020. Six more companies from Croatia are also on the list of one of the most reputable business papers in the entire world.

“We founded the company in Zagreb five years ago, in 2017 to be precise. Since then, we've opened branches in the United States of America and Denmark and grown to almost 90 employees. The fact that the Financial Times has included us on this prestigious list is a confirmation that we're developing the company in the right direction, that we are doing quality things and is an additional incentive to continue investing in the development of our services and products,'' pointed out Davorin Cetto, who founded the company alongside Tomislav Domanovac.

Their impressive client portfolio includes leading multinationals in retail, telecommunications, finance and pharmaceuticals, and they see their role in the market through linking data engineering, cloud technology and innovation. In particular, Syntio is one of the leading Google Cloud data engineering partners at the highest level, for the Nordic region primarily, but also globally. In the Nordic region, they work with several large companies to design and create data platforms that enable customers to use data, with the goal of achieving the best business results. In addition to Google, they're partners with Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure.

The well known FT 1000 is the annual list of the fastest growing European companies published by The Financial Times in cooperation with the German statistical company and the Statista portal, and it's been going on for six year now. It shows the companies that have achieved the highest growth rate between 2017 and 2020, and in order to get on the list, they had to achieve a minimum growth of 36.5 percent.

For more, make sure to check out our business section.

March the 5th, 2021 - The Croatian Submarine company has been spotted by the Financial Times and its impressive reach of sixteen million people around the world.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Financial Times (FT) a leading and highly respected publication which deals with all things related to politics and finance and has been around for more than 130 years now, has turned the spotlight on no less than the Croatian Submarine.

"In the autumn of 2020, we were contacted by the London office of the Financial Times. They requested documentation related to our business, for the purpose of possible inclusion in the prestigious list of the fastest growing European companies. From the very beginning, the Croatian Submarine company´s approach has been complementary in some segments to the business of technology companies. We´re really flattered by the fact that we, as a company from the non-technology industry, have ended up side by side with tech companies. This is a recognition for the entire company and the entire Submarine team. The imperative has always been the satisfaction of our employees because without it there can be no successful company,¨ said Aleksandar Lazinica, founder and co-owner of the Croatian Submarine company.

A place on the Financial Times list cannot be purchased for any money, and the entire business has been analysed in detail over the past five years. To be considered for the list at all, the company had to have an annual revenue of a minimum of 100,000 euros and then at least 1.5 million euros back in 2019. Consequently, the company had to record growth above 35.5 percent. By comparison, Submarine achieved total growth of 221.4 percent, its company revenue in 2019 stood at a staggering 4.5 million euros, and had 77 employees.

In the year when the coronavirus spread across the world, the Croatian Submarine company exceeded the annual revenue they acheived in 2019 by an impressive 30 percent and it will be interesting to observe the order on that same list for 2021, writes N1. Of course, these are just a few of the strict criteria that companies had to meet, and with its results, Submarine became the only non-technological company from the Republic of Croatia to be listed, ranking as the 720th fastest growing company according to the Financial Times.

This is not the only recognition for the team behind Submarine. It is worth recalling that back in 2019 they entered the list of 50 places in which you can eat the best burger in the world according to the readers of the Big 7 Travel portal, which has a community of 1.5 million readers.

"We totally adjusted the way in which we do business way back at the very beginning of the pandemic. Agility and adaptation to new business conditions is the key to any company's success. Investing in knowledge, new technologies and strengthening the management team has borne fruit. We´re extremely proud of this recognition and I once again would like to congratulate all members of the Submarine team!¨ concluded Dragoljub Bozovic, the founder and CEO of Submarine.

Despite the ongoing pandemic and all of the economic knock-on effects which accompany it, the Croatian Submarine company opened two new restaurants. In 2021, they plan to open five more throughout Croatia, thus fulfilling their mission to provide pleasure and the enjoyment of organic burgers throughout the country.

For more on Croatian companies, follow Made in Croatia.

Data continues to show that beautiful Međimurje County is the most developed county of continental Croatia after the City of Zagreb, the only one over 50 percent more developed than the EU average.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 12th of March, 2019, this year, Međimurje is among the winners in the category of creating a favourable entrepreneurial environment, the efficiency of the public administration, incentives and investment in infrastructure through EU funds.

The award was presented by one of the most prestigious and highly respected business media outlets in the world, the Financial Times, as part of its fDI Magazine, a publication that analyses global business activities across the world.

To briefly recall, last year, Međimurje was recognised as one of the top ten regions in the European Union. This new award was based on the analysis of the European Statistical Office (EUROSTAT), the Central Bureau of Statistics and other competent public authorities. According to the Economic Power Index, Međimurje is one of just two counties that recorded a two-place shift, and the only county in continental Croatia which GDP was higher in 2014 than it was back in 2008, resulting in GDP growth of 2.8 percent.

According to some of the measured criteria of the role of public administration, Međimurje County has, among other things, the lowest public sector expenditure in Croatia, and according to the data of the Institute of Public Administration and the European Commission (EC), it also boasts the highest grade according to the criteria for transparency of Croatian local and regional self-government units.

Furthermore, the official statistics for the second year distinguish Međimurje County as the region which invested the most in education, and the high degree of use of EU funds in creating quality health care conditions, investment in infrastructure, culture, and the protection of natural values (resources) ​​has enabled Međimurje's transition to a group of above-average developed counties compared to the average in the Republic of Croatia.

In addition to all of the above, Međimurje's economy recorded an unemployment rate of five percent, the largest amount of exports in when compared to imports, export growth of 14 percent, employment growth of five percent, total income growth of 11.8 percent, while gross profit of the economy was higher by 9.2 percent, net profit was 13.2 percent higher, which in turn increased revenues by 11.8 percent.

The efficiency of Međimurje's public administration was assessed through the speed of issuing building permits, rational budget management, the role of the regional development agency, the county energy agency and the technology innovation centre. Investment in the knowledge centre was created by creating the prerequisites for start ups by building new premises worth 12 million kuna, withdrawing EU funds for the construction of the "Metalska jezgra" research centre (32 million kuna) and the centre for competence in nechanical engineering with a total value of 50 million kuna.

The award ceremony was held in France, and the following warm words were said about Međimurje:

"The key to your success is in the synergy of public administration, the private sector and the [local] population. Međimurje County has once more, in this way and with the obtaining of a new prestigious award, justified its title and its image as the most entrepreneurial county in Croatia. All this is a result of systematic work, a clear strategy and the proactive promotion of investment opportunities. For this year's choice, fDi Magazine has analysed data on economic potential, the working environment, cost efficiency, infrastructure and positive business environment(s) in as many as 112 locations,'' said the director of fDi Magazine, adding that, at this point, the most important economic and social issue is Brexit, where the Financial Times devotes a lot of attention to the analysis of the future of the European Union after Great Britain leaves (if it ever actually does, that is).

Sarah Russis, head of fDi Intelligence and GIS Planning, emphasised the role of digitalisation as an important link to the region's economic development and planned investment.

"We're aware that investors, entrepreneurs and public administration officials are doing demanding jobs, and therefore it's important to recognise and support every innovation, result, and effort invested in creating a positive entrepreneurial environment, and the incentives that facilitate the ease of day-to-day business."

''This is award is proof of a systematic and thoughtful strategy. Our goal is to attract value-added investments that lead to better working conditions. It's important to emphasise that many existing foreign investors have decided to expand their capacities and have confirmed that Međimurje is a location for long-term business success. Key activities that Međimurje County conducts are post-investment care, attracting new investment in key sectors, a marketing strategy for attracting FDI investments to Medjimurje County, and education for small and medium entrepreneurship. The Redea institute for public development is also a kind of "one stop shop" institution that monitors entrepreneurs through all administration challenges,'' stated Darko Radanović.

"This award is, above all, a recognition to all those who create added value and contribute the most to economic results. The residents of Međimurje are productive, valuable and resourceful, entrepreneurs are struggling in very challenging business conditions, mayors are successfully attracting money from EU funds, all based on a clear vision, a quality strategy and set goals. That has to be valued and I'm glad it was recognised by magazines like the Financial Times. But we're not going to stop there, we understand this as a challenge to be even better because, after Brexit, many investments will be redirected to other EU countries and we intend to use [that opportunity]. This resettlement process [of investment] has already begun, the potential of Međimurje has been recognised, which has been proven by a reward for the second year in a row, so, I hope that Croatia will model itself on other countries and jump on the train, recognise that this is a new moment and take advantage of its chance,'' said Medjimurje County Prefect Matija Posavec.

Make sure to follow our dedicated business page for much more.

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